Thursday, 21 January 2010

Toddlergirl and I had lots of fun making pizza for lunch at the weekend. The recipe is from Economy Gastronomy which is my new favourite cookbook and this was our attempt to replace our trips out for pizza with something tasty at home.

The dough needs to be made a bit in advance so it can prove for an hour or so but otherwise it's fairly fast and with lots that small cooks can do.

To make the tomato toppingOne pack of passata or a can of tinned tomatoesGarlic, chilli and a tsp of oregano

Fry up the garlic and chilli in a pan until nicely browned, then pop in the passata and bring up to simmer, add in oregano and let infuse for a bit. Any leftover can be used for pasta sauce afterwards.

Alternatively you can just have tomato, add in basil or other herbs or whatever takes your fancy

Put the flour, yeast, salt and sugar in a bowl and mix. Make a well in the middle and add a little of the water and mix in. Keep adding the water a little at a time and keep stirring. When it starts to come together add in the olive oil and use your hands to bring it together into a ball. Turn out onto a floured board and knead. Keep going until it rises back up when you stab a finger into it.

Put a splash of olive oil into a clean bowl, put in your dough and roll around so it's covered in oil. Then leave somewhere warm covered with a tea towel for an hour.

And after an hour give it a punch (not obligatory but good fun !)

And then roll it out

I make ours rectangular to get the best use out of the space on the baking tray

Then get your tomato sauce and toppings ready

Spread on the tomato sauce

And then put on the toppings (Toddlergirl seems obsessed with putting it all on one corner but that's probably just her)